"Everybody needs a cheeky snack now and then to get through a late evening library sesh with their pals – right?" Lu treats me with a braced grin and a marooned apple slice.

I shake my head.

Ew. Apples, sure, I could get behind. But dipping them in the peanut butter? That just meant ruining the tasty, juicy fruit.

Still, she is so sweet to offer it to me. It makes me recall a quote: If I were a God, it'd be a whole different story, dropping fruit at will. Let them eat apples.

"It's seven fifty, Ross. You know it's closing time in ten minutes?" Marcus, the security guard at the Cyrenius H Booth library entrance interrupts my train of thought.

We are standing in an imposing marble foyer, and despite my height, I feel tiny. A mere crumb in a giant, pristine oven.

"I, err... I thought you were still open," I say.

"Just come back tomorrow." The guard is about forty, with greasy receding blond hair slicked sharply against his skull and a shadow of stubble around his chin. He looks as if he has this conversation at least a dozen times a day.

"I can't," I say.

"Why not?"

"Please, Sir, Ross just needs to check something super important real quick," Lu puppy eyes him, batting her eyelids.

Always ready to help me out.

"I said..." He takes a step forward. "Just come back tomorrow."

"I can't," I say again. An image of my mom, scared out of her mind, flashes before my eyes. And then my mind goes completely blank.

I practically live in this place, yet there are no exceptions to the rule. Nothing to do here. Seems that an individual cannot defeat the grinding wheel of bureaucracy at its finest.

"I... Let's just go." I grit my teeth and walk outside with Lu. Z-Man is waiting for us by the low stone wall.

"Losers. Didn't think so," he says.

"I tried."

"K, my turn." He struts towards a grassy area where students are gabbing in small groups.

"Z, where are you going?" I call after him.

"Watch and learn, bro. No closing time's gonna stop me." Z-Man pats his wrist watch and walks on.

He is getting more than a few suspicious glances from the mostly white students. His frame, slick neon suit and dark skin put him in stark contrast to everyone else around. I feel my ears get hot as waves of whispering and snickers erupt in his wake. He carries his school rucksack in one hand and his smokes in the other. I lose track of him for a second, and then catch sight of his bouncing Not Giving a Fuck cap making its way back to us through the crowd.

"What was all that about?" Lucy said. "And where's your rucksack?"

Z, now empty handed, walks past us without stopping. "Stay here," he says quietly. "Wait for the right moment. Imma be in the car."

I am half a mind of telling Lu we should go with him. The whole situation is making me more and more uncomfortable.

"No turning back now," she whispers.

She is right. Z had gone and done whatever... It was what he had done and that is that. I have to get going. Besides, learning about shape changing is my best clue for figuring out the rest of the riddle that is Beatrice Laurent.

Eight thirty, she had said.

Less than five minutes later, a commotion erupts from the picnic tables. Students scatter hurriedly away and local police emerge from all directions, faces and bodies tense for a fight.

"My gosh." Lu slaps her forehead and covers her eyes with her neatly-combed fringes. "Can't take Z-Man anywhere."

Just then the greasy haired guard comes out of the library alongside a few others and runs toward the ruckus on the lawn.

Lu stands up and pokes her head through the glass doors.

No one is watching the entrance.

Ignoring the tap dance my heart is doing in my ears, I accept her outstretched hand, and we duck quickly through the low security arch, past the guard post and into the library.

Aah. I take a deep breath, inhaling the glorious book smell.

"My idea of a wild vacation is taking my library books to the campsite," I say, and my words are met with a scornful "Shhh."

A pink haired and pink nailed girl behind the desk, whom I know as Eulalia, points at a poster.

"The Sound of Silence," the thing reads. Simon and Garfunkel illustration and a drawn generic hand being brought to full lips reinforce her command.

"I've never seen so many books in my life!" Lu squees, tap dancing in spot with her feet. "Ooh, look at what this one says." She approaches a random shelf and I am desperate to tell her that this is by no means a way you should behave in a public library.

Squinting through her glasses, Lu reads out loud: "Economic Development in a Third World Country. Studies in Puerto Rican Literature."

The pink hair and nails look as if they are about to spit fire.

"It never even occurred to me there was such a thing as Puerto Rican literature, let alone we'd find, like, a thick volume on it in Cyrenius H Booth Library in New Town." She slaps her own cheek. "Stay focused, girl. Do what you came here to do."

"We are closing in five minutes." Eulalia raises and takes an intimidating step in Lu's direction.

"We'll be quick, we promise! Apple slice?" I hear her say behind me, tupperware screeching and all. I cannot help but smile as I run my finger alongside a sprawling map till I find the area called Spirituality.

"Sub-basement two?" Pink hair now hovers beside me.

"Yeah. I just need to check out this book real quick." I blush, aware that it is not polite to barge in so close to quitting time.

Eulalia rolls her eyes but then her facial features soften, and she eventually nods.

"Follow me." She passes through a loudly clanking doorway.

I turn around.

Lu is now sitting on the marble floor cross legged, her eyes darting through the pages of what I recognize to be The Witcher by Andrzej Sapkowski.

"Lu?" I prompt her.

"Huh? Oh, I'll just wait for you up here. This thing is a-mazing! Did you know that The Witcher was a book, too! I thought it was just a TV show all along! Henry Cavill and I are meant to be, he just doesn't know it yet." She sighs and takes a bite out of her yucky apple slice.

Suppressing the need to tell her to get that food away from the precious book pages, I run after Eulalia.

We descend two flights of concrete stairs that reek of clove cigarettes and stale perfume.

Sub-basement two looks more like a warehouse than a library section. Wooden shelves stretch into the darkness of the vast gray hall. They must have the heating off, because I have to wrap my arms around myself as soon as we walk in.

"So, what's all this about?" Eulalia stabs me with one of her pink appendages.

A famous Instagram influencer has turned into a beast. My mom saw her yesterday. And today, she called me to come to her mansion under the pretext of  giving her a tutoring lesson.

Except that it is not a tutoring lesson that she wants, at all.

Having pondered that reply for some seconds, I decide against it.

"I'm, um, just doing some research."

She raises a brow.

"For a project I'm doing in anthropology class. Winter break homework, early preparation and all that." I fish out a little scrap of paper from my jeans pocket. "I'm studying a branch of shamanism that was influential in many past societies. Shapeshifting?"

The face framed with pink hair lights up. "Ooh!" She smiles conspiratorially. "Juicy stuff."

"You know about it?"

"Well you could say that I'm a bit into esoteric and occult myself." She throws herself back into a nearby swivel chair. 

"I had several books on the list here..." I glance down at my paper scrap.

"Shapeshifting: Techniques for Global and Personal Transformation is the one you want." A warm smile spreads over her face. "By..."

"John Perkins." I nod.

"Of course you know all about him." She crooks two fingers in the air and rolls her eyes.

"I just love books. I want to be around them all day, no matter where. Even if it is in some dingy basement at a stuffy old library." I smile. "But I do not really know all that much about him. Only that he also wrote Confessions of an Economic Hitman."

"Yeah? Anyway, he is a big anthro dude, and specializes in the spiritual systems of different cultures. But some say he got too involved, didn't know how to draw a line between himself and his... subject. That whole subject-anthropologist dividing line is pretty messed up anyway."

"What do you mean?"

"Ugh we don't have time for this. Asking me these questions will end up with me unloading a dissertation into your ear. Anyway, John Perkins would go in and learn a whole bunch about some groups and their rituals, and then, like, disappear for a while and learn actually how to do... You know."

I did not know.

"What?"

"Magic. Stuff with shape change. Whatever."

My eyes widen. "No way?"

"I mean, that's what people say, yeah." Eulalia shrugs. "But lemme stop runnin' my big mouth and go get you your book."

Before I can even digest the hypothesis I'd just heard, she turns and disappears into the stacks.

She is back a minute later and places a thick hardcover book into my hand.

"Here you go, Ross. This will give you a good introduction to Perkins' work." She holds up a hand. "And no need to explain. I see you are up to something interesting, and I am curious. I will let you keep the book longer than the allowed date."

"Wow," I say, admiring my allowance. "Thanks."

"De nada." She smiles. "It has all the good stuff. His journals and notes. I hope you find something interesting there."

"Same," is my brief reply as I head for the concrete stairs.

"What was in the rucksack?" Lu asks Z-Man minutes later while we are rolling to our respective destinations in his Hyundai Elantra.

Z either ignores her or he can't hear her over the old funk song he is happily singing along to as we cruise down the Taunton Hill Road.

I clutch the book to my chest. The world seems to get stranger and stranger by the hour, but the waning afternoon stays stubbornly beautiful. The setting sun plays hide-and-seek with some purple clouds stretched out along the New Town skyline and a chill breeze swooshes through the open Elantra windows and makes a mess of my hair nest.

"Z!" Lucy repeats, now with a reproachful look.

"Oh, alright." He rolls his eyes and stops the car in front of the Laurent mansion.

Lu shoots him an irritated glance again. "What was in your rucksack?"

"Nothing."

"What do you mean, nothing?"

"I mean, not a damn thing. I emptied it out before we left for the library."

"Why?" I tilt my head.

Z-man looks proud of himself. "I always roll with an empty rucksack. In case I gotta leave it somewhere."

"Z..." Lu starts cautiously. "Why did everyone go running and security got all upset?"

"Cuz a dark skinned kid put a rucksack down and walked away."

"But..." I open my mouth, incredulous.

"It worked, didn't it, Ross?"

"But you could have gotten arrested, man!" Lu yelps and lunges forward at him, suffocating him in her special snuggly hug.

Z scoffs but his mouth widen in a smile at the Lu-choke. "Why? For being forgetful? For... Needlessly troubling the good people of lost and found. I wish they would." He blows a raspberry. "Oi, did you get what you needed?"

"I mean, yeah..." I run my fingers through my hair. "But you were sitting  out in the car the whole time. Something could have happened to you."

"Nah. I know how to take care of myself." Z just laughs my remark off and turns the radio back on. I can never tell when he is kidding about stuff like that, and when he is serious.

"Thank you. You have risked so much."

"Hey, don't sweat it. You hid that mountain lioness for me, and didn't call the coppers or the animal control to rat out on me having run it over. How did it go, yesterday?"

"She, umm..." I stare at my feet and then rub my neck, almost still feeling Gus' strangling palms.. "She kind of escaped on her own in the morning." I gulp, sensing my cheeks growing hot.

I feel bad about not telling them the whole truth but I promised my mom I would not talk about it to anyone. Maybe some other day, when the time is right.

"Good, it didn't die then." He gives a thumb up.

"Sooo..." Lucy turns around from her privileged shotgun seat position and boops my nose. "What was it that you needed, from the library?"

"Just a... tutoring lesson book." I scratch at my nape furiously, one foot already out of the car. "Didn't want to come unprepared, and all that."

"Boo-yah!" Z wolf whistles. "Do I detect some thorough preparation for one-on-one class with Beatrice Laurent? Hubba-hubba!"

"I wonder what is wrong with her. She hasn't been in school for two days now. Maybe it's just a common cold that's been going around..." Lu places a pensive forefinger on her chin. "But! Holy smokes! She did ask for you specifically! And how did she get your number?"

"The mystery deepens," Z-man says with a wink. "Go get her, loverboy!"

"It's not like that, Z." I loosen the collar of my shirt which is now positively strangling me.

"Yet." I hear both of them giggle as I step onto a gravel path and give them a stern eye roll as a last sign of goodbye.

I come to a stop at the edge of the driveway.

Oh.

The castle-house seems old and abandoned. It's not really a castle, it is way too small for that, but whoever built the Laurent mansion made it look like one. Before Beatrice moved in, it was kind of notorious in our town. The castle-house is tall, at least two stories–maybe three with that attic–with two turrets that may or may not be just for show, and stained glass depicting a rosebush around the large wooden front door. There is a moat that cuts in front of the house, fed from a small stream in the woods, and even a drawbridge to the front steps. The place is a weird blend of medieval and modern and there are even lions on the cement posts at the end of the driveway.

How fitting.

Gawking at its tall windows, I take another step, trip up and land right on the gravel.

"Ow," I hiss. Cursing my clumsy self, I quietly make my way to the front door after dusting off my knees. Strangely enough, it's ajar, so I just push the rest of the way open and sneak in.

Strange. Why is the door unlocked? And would not Beatrice have a butler of a sort to greet me, as my mom had indicated?

The hallway is pitch dark and I gulp. I should leave. My common sense is telling me not only to leave but to hurry and call Z-man to come back with his car. Go home, and just break the news to my mom. Couldn't do it. End of story.

But... for some reason I can't get the sunshine in her smile out of my head.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Getting into dalliances with paranormal entities should be the last thing on my "to do list."

Yet here I am.

As a precaution I pull out my phone, turn the flashlight on because the sun has already set.

The interior is beautiful, with exposed stonework and steepled wooden roof beams. I cannot say I pride myself in knowing half the architectural argot, but the house is astounding and at least –unlike most of the houses around here–it doesn't use bear rugs or antlers at all in terms of decoration.

I dare to step into the foyer and ease the door shut behind me.

The ceiling creaks without a warning. I freeze.

It sounds like footsteps.

A/N: Theme song: Simon & Garfunkel "The Sound of Silence"